AURKB as a Promising Prognostic Biomarker in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

The Aurora kinases form a family of 3 genes encoding serine/threonine kinases and are involved in the regulation of cell division during the mitosis. This study was designed to investigate the prognostic role of Aurora kinases in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). In this study, we analyzed the expression, overall survival (OS) data, promoter methylation level, and relationship with immunoinhibitors of Aurora kinases in patients with HCC from GEPIA2, UALCAN, OncoLnc, and TISIDB databases. Protein-protein interaction (PPI) network, gene ontology, Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG), and Reactome pathway analysis were performed using the STRING database and Cytoscape software. We found that the mRNA expression, stages of HCC, and OS of AURKA and AURKB in HCC tissues were significantly different from control tissues, but there were significant inconsistencies in promoter methylation level and relationship with immunoinhibitors for AURKA and AURKB. None of the above items were significantly different for AURKC. Furthermore, a hub module including AURKA, AURKB, and AURKC was identified within the PPI network constructed with the Molecular Complex Detection (MCODE) plug-in in Cytoscape software. Our results show that AURKB could be a potential biomarker for HCC prognosis.